Today's News

Students and teachers at Oakland Elementary School in Carroll County are the recipients of 12 new Google Chromebooks that have been donated in honor of two local residents.

On Nov. 1, Shirley Harmon Steele and Patty Blankenheim presented the new laptops in honor of their late husbands. Carroll County School Board Chairman Brian Spencer and Oakland Principal Larry Williams accepted the computers on behalf of the students and teachers.

Thomas Patrick Aldrich, 32, of Galax, was arrested Nov. 17 and charged with both felony and misdemeanor possession of controlled substances.

Galax Police Chief Rick Clark said Officer Silverio Gonzales “responded to a call to Walmart for a suspected shoplifter. Aldrich was arrested and searched subsequent to his arrest, during which Silverio discovered a glass smoking device that contained suspected methamphetamine.”

Aldrich was transported to New River Valley Regional Jail and held on a $2,000 bond.

An industrial fire Nov. 16 at 7:15 p.m. at the Vaughan-Basssett chip core plant on Jackson Street left no injuries, according to Galax Fire Chief David Hankley.

“This incident was most likely trigged by the malfunctioning of a motor on the bag house causing it to overheat,” said Hankley. “This produced a large explosion of the three-story steel cylinder bag house.”

Thinking of others
I would like to share with readers a wonderful thing that happened at First Christian Church in Galax on Nov. 10. A gentleman stopped by the church office and told the minister the Lord has spoken to him and he was to give the church a gift. He handed him 10 $100 bills. He did not want to divulge his name. Members want to thank him and let him know the funds were put in the food bank account to buy Christmas baskets for the needy in the community. May God bless him, also.

FRIES ― U.S. Army veteran Coy Shaffner, 94, had to think for a moment on the exact year he joined the armed forces, but when he was asked how many days he spent as a prisoner of war, he recalled the number instantly: 203 days.

The well-worn conventional wisdom in America right now goes something like this: We’ve never been this politically divided.

Nihilists and pundits will tell us that we’re so set in our rightish or leftish ways that Congress’s dysfunction is a result of the people’s philosophical rigidity. It’s a neat way of blaming citizens for the faults of their leaders.

HILLSVILLE – Emergency crews responded to a fire at Magnolia in Hillsville on Friday morning. The fire resulted in minimal damage and did close a portion of the textile plant for some time.

According to 1st Lt. Andy Utt with the Hillsville Volunteer Fire Department, crews were notified at 10:50 a.m. of a fire at 1 Advanced Technology Drive in Hillsville. Once on the scene, crews saw heavy smoke coming from a bay door on the side of the building.